David is originally from Santee, California, a suburb of San Diego. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with high distinction in the Spring of 2011 with a B.A. in Physics and a minor in Music. While at Berkeley he did research in space physics at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, examining magnetic reconnection at the earth's magnetopause. He was an active member of the Cal Band as well as an editor of the Berkeley Political Review, where he served as Editor-in-Chief in his senior year.

Currently, David is enrolled in the Ph.D. physics program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He began work in the DVH group during the Spring of 2012. Since then, he has measured the current-phase relation of a graphene Josephson junction while working with UIUC graduate student Chris English. Continuing this thread, he is now working on making phase-sensitive measurements of Josephson junctions containing a ferromagnetic barrier in a collaboration with the Birge group from Michigan State University.